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Posts Tagged ‘Paul Ryan’
October 12th, 2012 at 1:18 am
Ryan’s Best Line of the Night

“I think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don’t come out of your mouth the right way.”

True and well delivered.  The crowd loved it too.

October 4th, 2012 at 9:57 pm
Biden Trying to Replace Ryan on GOP Ticket?

If headlines earn a vice presidential candidate’s stripes, then Joe Biden may merit consideration as Mitt Romney’s most effective attack dog.

A few days ago Biden said the middle class has been “buried” during President Barack Obama’s economic stewardship.  Today, Obama’s self-immolating Vice President confirmed Mitt Romney’s charge that the Democratic incumbent would raise taxes if reelected:

Biden said Romney and other Republicans often say `Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars.’ Guess what? Yes, we do in one regard: We want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn’t have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super-wealthy. That’s not a tax raise. That’s called fairness where I come from.”

It’s true Biden is gaffe-prone, but these kinds of statements are too true to be unintentional.

Watch yourself, Paul Ryan – Good Ole’ Joe is gunning for your job!

H/T: Fox News

October 1st, 2012 at 5:35 pm
Romney and Ryan Say Holder Should Resign or Be Fired

The Daily Caller reports that “Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan agrees with presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s call for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign, or for President Barack Obama to fire him, over Operation Fast and Furious.”

Ryan is now the 131st member of Congress to say Holder should resign or be fired.

This is about more than politics.

Now that Univision has uncovered evidence that a massacre of 14 teenagers in Ciudad Juarez was perpetrated with Fast and Furious guns, and identified “57 more previously unreported firearms that were bought by straw purchasers monitored by ATF during Operation Fast and Furious, and then recovered in Mexico in sites related to murders, kidnappings, and at least one other massacre,” it is now impossible to let Holder escape responsibility for a program he claims he knew nothing about.

Even though the Department of Justice’s non-partisan Inspector General could find no direct evidence of Holder’s knowledge, the same IG told congressional investigators that “we struggle to understand how an operation of this size, of this importance, that impacted another country like it did, could not have been briefed up to the attorney general of the United states.  It should have been, in our view.  It was that kind of a case.”

And let’s not forget that Holder’s Contempt of Congress citation was directly linked to the White House’s dubious extension of executive privilege to cover a cabinet member.

So, either Eric Holder is being shielded from culpability because of the White House’s refusal to provide the relevant documents, or the U.S. Attorney General didn’t know about a major program that could, and did, jeopardize America’s relationship with Mexico.

Either way, Romney and Ryan would do voters a service by highlighting this colossal failure of leadership by key people in the Obama Administration.  If Holder’s job is safe, and the President is reelected, no one should be surprised if we get more of the same for the next four years.

September 7th, 2012 at 2:17 pm
Ryan’s Democratic Stand-In on Challenges of Prepping Biden

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told Roll Call what the biggest challenge is while preparing Vice President Joe Biden to debate Paul Ryan:

“I sit next to Paul Ryan in the Budget Committee day in and day out,” he said on his preparation for the role.”So, I know how he presents the Republican case.

“He presents a plan that’s bad for the country with a smile, so I think the challenge is dealing with presentation of the plan, explaining why the plan is bad for the country,” he added.

With all due respect to Rep. Van Hollen, his biggest challenge is helping Joe Biden explain how ripping out more than $700 million from Medicare to pay for ObamaCare is a better policy than Ryan’s idea to convert future Medicare benefits into a fiscally sustainable premium support voucher.

It would take all of Bill Clinton’s rhetorical sleight-of-hand to pull off that feat.  Instead, Van Hollen is working with the gaffe-prone Biden.

Good luck overcoming that handicap, Congressman.  You’ll need it.

August 24th, 2012 at 6:11 pm
Paul Ryan’s Magic Numbers: 190; 72; 1,050

They aren’t lotto numbers; they are the number of times Paul Ryan’s name and budget ideas have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard & National Review, and on Fox News, respectively, since the presidential election of 2008.

According to Politico, the unequaled access to conservative opinion leaders came as a direct result of Ryan’s deliberate strategy to cultivate conservative pundits and think tank-types so that they in turn would promote Ryan’s ideas to the American public, and ultimately, back onto Ryan’s colleagues in Congress.

To say the strategy worked is an understatement.  To read how Ryan did it would be time well spent.

August 23rd, 2012 at 5:59 pm
Romney-Ryan & a Realist Approach to Entitlement Reform

Over at National Review, John O’Sullivan argues that the Romney-Ryan ticket should take a realist tone when it sells its vision of entitlement reform, referencing a familiar example:

Despite all the guff written about him, Reagan was not an optimist. He was a realist who believed in the virtue of hope (which is quite another thing — see below). Realism is a combination of prudence and hope. Realists believe that they can solve problems and win battles, but only by evaluating the dangers accurately and proposing adequate responses to them. Reagan expressed great faith in the future of the American people, but he also warned that their grandchildren might lose that future if the present generation did not defend the U.S. Constitution and traditional liberties. He warned eloquently against the Soviet threat, but instead of looking on the bright side and leaving matters to chance, he drove through — against strong political and media opposition — tough policies on foreign policy and defense.

Hope and prudence are what Ryan has shown with his persistence in speaking the fiscal truth to seniors in his Wisconsin congressional district.  It was hope in the power of fact-based arguments that compelled him to spend hours in town hall meetings detailing the chronic deficits afflicting Medicare and Medicaid.  And it was from a deep well of prudence that he sought to explain how the continued failure to reform their structure will result in either taxes we can’t afford or cuts in coverage some people can’t endure.

This election will likely turn on whether Ryan’s realistic appraisal of entitlement reform will be interpreted by the public as a blend of hope and prudence or instead an accountant’s excuse to throw granny off a cliff.

August 22nd, 2012 at 11:39 am
Maureen Dowd, Understated as Always

Here’s the latest screed from the princess of printed prattle, a writer so prone to histrionic hysteria (not to mention hysteron proterons — look it up) that her work bears the same relationship to thoughtfulness and rationality as a rhinocerous does to gracefulness:

[Paul Ryan puts] a fresh face on a Taliban creed — the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs…. But, for all the Republican cant about how they want to keep government out of the lives of others, the ultraconservatives are panting to meddle in the lives of others. Contrary to President Obama’s refreshing assertion Monday that a bunch of male politicians shouldn’t be making health care decisions for women, this troglodyte tribe of men and Bachmann-esque women craves that responsibility.

The writing sins there are abundant: extreme triteness (gee, it is just so original and clever to call conservatives “troglodytes” and “antediluvians” — although one does wonder, as a matter of chronology, how we can be troglodytes and “medieval” at the same time), breathless overstatement not as intentional irony but as an actual attempt at persuasion, and blind, over-broad, demonizing assertions unmoored from proof. Hers is the same genre of bigotry as the assertions by 1960s racists that because some blacks are criminals, all blacks are dangerous criminals. One wonders if she has ever actually attempted to have a cordial conversation with a conservative Christian of any denomination, with anybody who lives more than 25 miles from a major urban hub (unless said rural resident is a Cesar Chavez-type protester), or with somebody who doesn’t think that, say, serial adultery is an ordinary feature of most marriages. If so, she gives no evidence of it — because her screeds are pure bigotry against an entire class of people.

If the New York Times had any standards (perish the thought), it would not put up with such viciousness unmoored from reason or basic human decency. Next time the editorialists at the famous rag try to lecture the rest of us about “civility,” here’s hoping they choke and splutter on their fumes of their own outrageous hypocrisy.

August 20th, 2012 at 7:54 pm
Ryan is the Linchpin to Enacting Conservative Reform

William Kristol sums up the grassroots enthusiasm over the Paul Ryan pick:

Until last week, the Romney campaign was a few hundred operatives working hard in Boston trying to win a presidential election. Now Romney-Ryan is a groundswell of citizens spontaneously writing, volunteering, and proselytizing on behalf of a cause. The first was going to be a grueling uphill climb. The second could be more like running downhill with the wind at your back. Even in the second instance, of course, the candidate still has to jump the hurdles and avoid the obstacles. But it’s a lot easier to prevail when you stand for a cause citizens are eager to join than when you’re engaged in a campaign voters may diffidently support.

And it’s not just politically involved citizens who are energized by Ryan’s elevation to be Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate.

As Fred Barnes notes, the 87 House Republicans who won office in 2010 have helped heighten Ryan’s profile by supporting his budget reforms.  At least 70 of these are considered likely to be reelected this year, thus solidifying their importance in the caucus.  By putting their party on record as supporting Ryan’s vision, these House GOPers make Romney’s embrace of Ryan a clear legitimization of conservative, market-based reform.

Ryan is the linchpin.  Without him providing the bridge between the reform-minded conservatives in the House and the Romney campaign, it’s very likely that a Romney Administration would be reluctant to move on a policy package the candidate did not run on.  Now, Romney owns it.

Let the proselytizing continue.

August 17th, 2012 at 8:27 am
Biden Gets Debating Partner, But Will It Help?

Politico reports that Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) will play the part of Paul Ryan as Vice President Joe Biden prepares for his one and only debate with the Wisconsin Republican.

While Van Hollen – the politically savvy ranking Democrat on Ryan’s House Budget Committee – will no doubt do a fine job, I’m more than a bit surprised to learn that Biden even prepares for such things like a debate.  The good ole’ Joe we’ve come to know – “They’ll put ya’ll back in chains!” – just doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who thinks much before he speaks.

My guess is that won’t change even with all the time and money spent on coaches, policy briefs, and poll-tested responses.  Joe is who he is: an emotive liberal who shoots from the lip.  His advantage, of course, is that everyone has incredibly low expectations for him; especially now that he’s going up against Paul Ryan, the universally acclaimed number one intellectual public official in the Republican Party.

If Ryan hammers Biden or makes him look out of touch, well, we expect that.  But if Biden gets Ryan flustered or slides in a good line (even if it’s a non sequitur), then the media will declare him the upset winner.

My guess is that Ryan plays it straight and banks on Biden making an unforced error before confirming the widespread hunch that Biden is out of his depth.  Biden’s history makes that a safe bet.

August 15th, 2012 at 9:19 am
Ramirez Cartoon: The Truth About Medicare
Posted by Print

 

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

 View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

August 14th, 2012 at 8:24 pm
2012: Capitalism v. Socialism

I’ve written before that the importance of Paul Ryan’s brand of conservative reform is that it puts federal policy on a fundamentally different trend line than its current course under President Barack Obama.

From Ryan’s perspective, the American future post-reform looks like one where there’s more money in everyone’s pocket, less going to the government, and a fiscally sustainable social safety net.

As for President Obama, all you need to know is contained in his campaign’s “Life of Julia” web ad.

If Ryan is true to form, then during his time as Mitt Romney’s running mate he’ll accentuate the choice facing voters this fall of an American future that is either growing thanks to a resurgent capitalism or declining under the weight of a galloping socialism.  Perhaps he’ll do so along the lines described by Harvard economist Robert Barro in the Wall Street Journal:

Drawing correct policy implications is hard because one naturally focuses on the jobs and production that are directly saved or lost when the government bails out GM or when Chinese imports expand. In contrast, it is impossible to detail where U.S. jobs and production would have been created or destroyed if GM had been allowed to fail or if trade with China were curtailed.

What is feasible is to look at the overall impact of a set of policies. For example, a general increase in socialistic policies tends to lower economic growth. And, more specifically, the Obama administration’s weakening of individual incentives to work and produce by its sharp expansion of transfer payments can be reasonably viewed as retarding the U.S. economic recovery since the end of the recession in 2009.

With the addition of conservative thinker and budget expert Rep. Paul Ryan to the Republican presidential ticket, we can hope that the economic dialogue will become more serious. And perhaps this added substance will extend beyond the important issue of long-term fiscal reform to encompass the enduring but still crucial debate about socialism versus capitalism.

August 14th, 2012 at 11:46 am
More on Obama, Ryan, and Medicare
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Ashton’s post yesterday brings up an important point about the Obama Administration’s handling of Medicare. The worst aspect of the cuts he cites, however, is the complete duplicity of the math involved. Basically, the Administration has attempted to claim the same money both as savings and expenditures. The best interpretation is total mathematical illiteracy. The worst is accounting fraud.

Paul Ryan ripped the Administration for this in his famous showdown with the president at the Blair House health care summit in 2010. For an even more bracing version of this dispute, see this exchange between Congressman John Shimkus (R-IL) and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in which the Secretary, having reached a fork in the road, takes it:

August 13th, 2012 at 7:50 pm
With Ryan, ObamaCare Deficits Front and Center

I’ll add my voice of support to the chorus here, and say I think Paul Ryan is an inspired choice to be Mitt Romney’s running mate.  One of the benefits of selecting Ryan, is that Romney gives conservatives a chance to articulate the dramatically different trend lines between the parties when it comes to reforming Medicare.

Under ObamaCare, $700 million is ripped out of an already teetering Medicare system to pay for new entitlements.  By contrast, Ryan’s reform grandfathers current seniors while converting Medicare into a voucher program for younger Americans.  Whereas ObamaCare creates new spending commitments with the same pile of money – thus spiking deficits – Ryan’s reform (and by extension, Romney’s) caps Medicare’s subsidy at a level that makes federal spending more sustainable over the long haul.

The campaign just got serious.  I’m looking forward to the next 12 weeks.

August 13th, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Bobby Jindal Explains Paul Ryan’s Medicare Plan

Especially starting at about the 5-minute mark of this clip, Bobby Jindal destroys the attacks against Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan. He was being by Chuck Todd, who leans a bit left but who is one of the most fair-minded and thorough of establishment-media reporters/analysts. Todd pressed the accusation that the Ryan “premium support” plan would favor the rich over the poor. Jindal blew away that charge, reminding Todd (and informing viewers) that the federal subsidy known as premium support would be income-adjusted. He also reminded people that the premium support idea has strong bipartisan provenance. Good stuff.

August 13th, 2012 at 12:17 pm
The Ryan Pick
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Count me pleasantly surprised by Saturday’s announcement that Mitt Romney has selected Paul Ryan as his running mate. Given the risk-averse nature the Romney campaign had demonstrated up to this point, I was expecting the choice to be bland and uninspiring — my foremost guesses having been Rob Portman or Tim Pawlenty (for what it’s worth, multiple reports seem to indicate that Romney’s final choice came down to those two and Ryan). Ryan, who truly has been the intellectual leader of the Republican Party for the past several years, is a vastly superior choice to either of those two.

I have no idea how the politics of this play out. It seems to me that the fears that liberal demagoguery of the Ryan budget could cost Romney Florida are well-founded, given the state’s huge population of seniors. Minus the Sunshine State, it’s hard to envision a scenario where Romney becomes the 45th President of the United States in January. I also remain skeptical that, even with Ryan on the ticket, Wisconsin will elude Obama’s grasp this time (I hope I’m wrong about this, but it seems to me that the conservative commentariat has been excessively enthusiastic about prospects for flipping the Badger State ever since the Scott Walker recall).

These are not causes for despair necessarily, but cautionary notes as we begin the campaign in earnest after Labor Day. The Romney campaign — not known heretofore for its exceptional messaging skills — has just given itself perhaps the most daunting communications task in the history of modern American presidential elections. This election will no longer be a backwards-looking discussion about Barack Obama’s stewardship of the American economy over the past four years; instead it will be a 90-day symposium about what the “social contract” (a phrase I loathe, but one that will carry the day) will look like in 21st Century America.

The advantage that Romney and Ryan have is that their vision — reining in spending, empowering individuals, reducing the debt, and reasserting individual responsibility — is the only one that is viable in the long-term. The advantage that Obama and Biden have is that their vision — an unsustainable status quo that cossets Americans from responsibility and hides the calamitous costs of the welfare state — is much less psychologically disruptive, a trait that (sadly) goes a long way in winning over a substantial portion of the electorate.

The stakes of this election have just become enormous. This is no longer about whether Mitt Romney will become president or not. It’s now about whether the conservative vision for arresting America’s decline will receive popular ratification. And there are only 12 weeks to make the case. With the smartest, most articulate defender of the conservative alternative now on the ticket, we’re about to run out of excuses. If we can’t win this time, the resultant chaos will make the aftermath of the 2008 election look like a garden party.

August 11th, 2012 at 9:40 am
Romney Picks Ryan

Governor Mitt Romney this morning announced his choice of Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) as his Vice Presidential running mate.  It is a great pick.

There is no other public official on the planet who can better articulate conservative economic principles to the electorate – and aggressively advocate those principles to address our nation’s fiscal crisis head on – than Paul Ryan.   He is a man of strong character and deep intellect.  He is unapologetic in his defense of individual liberty and free enterprise.  And he knows that America is an exceptional nation.

Most important, Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan shows that his priority is leading and governing the nation.

Game on!

August 9th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Barack Obama, Journalism Critic
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A piece by Amy Chozick in the New York Times this week has to be read to be believed (ok, you’ll read it and you still won’t believe it). Proving that there is absolutely nothing for the media to do in August, Chozick was commissioned to write a piece on President Obama’s relationship with the press, including the Commander-in-Chief’s critical exegesis of the fourth estate. The results are predictably hilarious:

The news media have played a crucial role in Mr. Obama’s career, helping to make him a national star not long after he had been an anonymous state legislator. As president, however, he has come to believe the news media have had a role in frustrating his ambitions to change the terms of the country’s political discussion. He particularly believes that Democrats do not receive enough credit for their willingness to accept cuts in Medicare and Social Security, while Republicans oppose almost any tax increase to reduce the deficit.

Privately and publicly, Mr. Obama has articulated what he sees as two overarching problems: coverage that focuses on political winners and losers rather than substance; and a “false balance,” in which two opposing sides are given equal weight regardless of the facts.

Mr. Obama’s assessments overlap with common critiques from academics and journalism pundits, but when coming from a sitting president the appraisal is hardly objective, the experts say.

Basically, you can close your eyes, point to any sentence at random, and prepare to guffaw.

There’s a lot of awfully stupid analysis here (both the Times and Obama’s). Maybe one of the reasons, for instance, that Democrats’ supposed willingness to rein in entitlements goes unpraised is because there have been some tells that it’s less than sincere — like the occasional fit of the vapors that finds liberals essentially accusing Paul Ryan of going from hospital to hospital unplugging life support machines.

There’s also the Times’ eager embrace of the unquestioned wisdom of (unnamed) “academics and journalism pundits” (FYI, that last one’s not a real job), a not-too-subtle hint that Obama’s frustration, poor soul, is shared by Really Smart People everywhere.

The aspect that I find most telling, however, is the president’s frustration with “false balance,” which it’s hard to interpret any other way than an irritation that the press doesn’t accept his side of the argument as gospel. This is of a piece with what he told the American Society of News Editors at a speech back in April:

“As all of you are doing your reporting, I think it’s important to remember that the positions that I am taking now on the budget and a host of other issues — if we had been having this discussion 20 years ago or even 15 years ago — would’ve been considered squarely centrist positions,” he said in response to a question about Republicans’ criticisms of his spending priorities. “What’s changed is the center of the Republican party and that’s certainly true with the budget.”

“This bears on your reporting,” he said Tuesday. “I think that there is oftentimes the impulse to suggest that if the two parties are disagreeing, then they’re equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. And an equivalence is presented, which I think reinforces peoples’ cynicism about Washington in general. This is not one of those situations where there’s an equivalency.”

For what it’s worth, I actually agree with Obama on “the truth lies in the middle” trope. There are occasions when that’s true, but most times that you hear someone express that sentiment it’s a sign that they’ve put their brain on cruise control and resigned themselves to communicating exclusively through cliches. What’s the midpoint between the death penalty being legal or illegal? What’s the midpoint between going to war with Iran or not going to war with Iran? No one actually lives by “moderation in all things” (“So it’s okay if I just participate in occasional arson?”), but everyone talks that way. That mindset creates especially acute problems in public policy, where splitting the baby almost always yields bad results.

There are two problems, though, with Obama’s analysis. The first is that the only corrective for “false equivalence” is a more ideological press, which presents issues from unapologetic (and admitted) liberal and conservative viewpoints. That’s where we are today and, while there’s plenty of chaff as a result, I’m inclined to think it’s far preferable to an overwhelmingly liberal media trying to create the illusion of objectivity. But that’s not what Obama wants. He’s clearly longing for the days when ‘media’ was a de facto singular noun and those who disagreed with him would have been pilloried as unreasonable without much push back.

The second problem is that Obama himself ascended to office on the basis of little more than ‘false equivalance’. If you’d like to give your brain the equivalent of diabetic shock, go back and read his treacly 2006 best-seller, “The Audacity of Hope,” where nearly every issue discussed is framed with a “on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand” device (he’s sandbagging you, of course — every question is resolved, ostensibly by inches, in favor of liberalism.)

So do I think Barack Obama knows bad writing? Yes. Because he’s practiced it.

July 11th, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Quin’s Quintuple Veep Picks

Thanks, Quin, for the “clarification” on your vice presidential pick(s).  So far, I count four possible outcomes allowing you to claim Nostradamus status at the next company picnic.

Putting your competing theories and rationalizations aside for a moment, however, let me ask this: Who do you want right now?

My head tells me Romney should pick Paul Ryan because the two seem very comfortable with each other (one report says Ryan can finish Romney’s sentences and make him laugh) and because Ryan gives Mitt the disciplined, wonkish Washington veteran Romney seems to like (see Rob Portman) as well as the likeable guy-next-door demeanor Mitt needs (see Tim Pawlenty).

I also think Ryan would be a great number two to Romney without being such a second fiddle as to obscure his future presidential ambitions.  Paul Ryan: dutiful and dynamic.

But that’s my head.  My heart wants Chris Christie.  Why?  Because I want someone to articulate the anger I have for the wasted time, money, and opportunities squandered by the Obama Administration over the last three years.  America has more debt, less prestige, and bleaker prospects for the future than at any other time in the last forty years.

That’s more than a “kick in the gut”; it’s an affront to our patriotism.

I want someone who not only articulates the problems with Obamaism, I want a person who can point to the way out.  But right now, I also want someone who does this with an edge.  Not necessarily going off on a heckler while eating an ice cream cone edge, but with something more than charts, statistics, and phrases about getting hit.

I’d like someone in the Romney camp who knows how to hit back.

Strategically, my head is telling me Romney should pick Ryan, but tactically, I want Christie out there getting daily news coverage rhetorically perp-walking Obama’s bad policies out of Washington.

How about you, Quin?  Who do you want as Romney’s VP right now.  You can keep your other prognostications for future reference.  All I’m asking is for an undisputed, single name occupying your Veep choice today.

May 18th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Ryan: Obama Practicing ‘Lost Decade Economics’

When asked by the Washington Examiner about the policy choices facing American voters this election, Paul Ryan painted a picture of stark contrasts, beginning with the Obama Administration’s high-tax, high-spending approach:

“Those kinds of packages won’t succeed in preventing a debt crisis. We’ll pass one round of austerity, that won’t work, then the bond markets will get us, then we’ll do another round and another round, just like what Europe is going through now. We will have chosen to go on the path to decline and we’ll have a lost decade,” Ryan explained. “We see the president and his party are basically practicing lost decade economics,” he finished.

Moving to the Republican alternative, Ryan explained, “We think we have one more great chance, if the elections go the right way, to turn this thing around once and for all. And address it, the right way, up front. With real entitlement reform, restructuring these programs. Real tax reform to get back to growth. We want growth we want opportunity, we want reform, so that we fix this the American way.”

In terms of jobs and economic opportunity, it certainly has been a lost half-decade under President Obama.  Doubling down on more of the same for another presidential term would likely consign an entire generation of workers to a lifetime earnings amount much lower than their parents.

President Obama may be willing to tolerate being the first leader to see a generation of kids live below their parents’ standard of living since World War II.  (What else explains his campaign’s “Life of Julia” foolishness?)  However, my suspicion is that a majority of voters are not interested in either Lost Decade Economics or much less a lost generation of opportunity.

Good sound bites convey truth in a memorable way.  Kudos to Ryan for correctly identifying the likely result of Obama’s wasteful policies.

May 16th, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Congress Votes Down Obama’s 2012 Budget: 513 – 0

You read that right.

After the House voted down President Barack Obama’s budget proposal 414 – 0 in March, today the Senate defeated it 99 – 0.  There are 51 Democrats in the Senate (and two Independents that caucus with them).  Not one voted for their president’s budget.  There are 190 Democrats in the House.  Not one voted for their president’s budget.

There are only 535 members in Congress.  As of today, 513 are on record opposing Barack Obama’s 2012 budget.  No one is on record supporting it.

By contrast, Paul Ryan’s budget passed the House on March 29th with 228 Republican votes, and only 10 party members against.  Today, 41 of 47 Republicans voted for Ryan’s budget; short of the 51 needed for passage.

Only one party is trying to govern.  The other is refusing to.  The American people should take notice and vote accordingly.